Thursday, 5 February 2009

Play Misty For Me 1971

Eastwood plays David "Dave" Garver, a radio disc jockey who becomes the target of Evelyn Draper, an obsessed female fan, played by Jessica Walter. Donna Mills plays his re-acquainted girlfriend, Tobie Williams. The title comes from Draper's habit of phoning in to Garver's radio show and asking him to play the classic Erroll Garner ballad "Misty".
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Below: How Play Misty for Me may have opened when seen in UK cinemas with its original X certificateTo view the Original Trailer Click Below:

Play Misty for me 1971 Original rolled U.S. Half sheet poster
Play Misty for me 1971 4 x 5 Colour Transparency Clint in his house.
Play Misty for me 1971 4 x 5 Colour Transparency on boat restaurant in purple suite.
Play Misty for me 1971 7" Single Vinyl First time ever. Roberta Flack
Play Misty for me 1971 Clint Eastwood Jessica Walter Original Australian Daybill poster
Play Misty for me 1971 Clint Eastwood Jessica Walter Original Belgium poster
Play Misty for me 1971 Clint Eastwood Jessica Walter Original German poster
Play Misty for me 1971 Clint Eastwood Jessica Walter Original Italian insert poster
Play Misty for me 1971 Clint Eastwood Jessica Walter Original Swedish Insert poster
Play Misty for me 1971 Clint Eastwood Jessica Walter Original Turkish poster
Play Misty for me 1971 Clint Eastwood Jessica Walter Original US 40x 60 Rolled poster
Play Misty for me 1971 Clint Eastwood Jessica Walter Original Yugoslavian Poster
Play Misty for me 1971 DVD Special Edition of Eastwood’s superb directorial debut
Play Misty for me 1971 German full Ad block range press sheets
Play Misty for me 1971 German insert style fold open press sheet well illustrated
Play Misty for me 1971 German press sheets with full ad range “Sadistico”
Play Misty for me 1971 Lobby set x 16 German
Play Misty for me 1971 Mini Lobby set x 8 USA
Play Misty for me 1971 Original FOH set x 8 UK
Play Misty for me 1971 Original MCA TV press kit, stills, slides, Ad slicks, Music cue sheets and more packed
Play Misty for me 1971 Original Radio Spots 30, 30, 20, 20, 10secs
Play Misty for me 1971 Original Roberta Flack sheet music “First time ever I saw your Face” from the film
Play Misty for me 1971 Original US TV Spots 16MM

Play Misty for me 1971 Press Stills b/w x 35

Play Misty for me 1971 UK Original illustrated Press sheet
Play Misty for me 1971 UK original press information book
Play Misty for me 1971 UK Original press sheet
Play Misty for me 1971 U.S. Original Press book
Play Misty for me 1971 x 2 Diff Film tie in Paperbacks
Star-30273 (1980)

Some Play Misty for Me material from around the world
Below: Rare Japanese B2 poster
Below: A second design Japanese Poster
Below: Play Misty for Me Original Japanese Program, thank you to my friend Davy Triumph for the image

Below: A Very rare Universal Banner size 24x82, these are very hard to find today.
Below: Play Misty for Me Full U.S. Lobby set
Below: A close up example of the U.S. Lobby card
Below: The Play Misty for Me U.S. 1 Sheet poster
Below: Play Misty for Me French Poster

Below: Here's a great shot of Clint with Erroll Garner during the post production of the film Play Misty for Me

Below: A great shot of Don during the making of the movie, perhaps holding one of his famous pieces of paper that contained his lines. Clint has often spoke of how Don had them 'pasted everywhere' during several interviews, and remembers it fondly. It was Don's first acting role, and as it was Clint's first movie as director, Clint felt better about having Don on the set.

Below: Early U.S. VideoDisc from MCA Inc Rather strangely, Clint is not featured on the cover at all!

Below: Here's the U.S. Laserdisc (Full Screen) from Universal MCA and contained the original Trailer
Below: Play Misty for Me The Japanese version of the Laserdisc
Below: Example of a Yugoslavian Play Misty For Me press still
Below: A great shot of Clint busy at work during the production of Play Misty for Me 1971.

Above: Clint directs one of his more 'static' co stars, Play Misty For Me 1971
Original ReviewsPlay Misty for Me (1971)November 4, 1971PLAY MISTY FOR MEBy Roger Greenspun, New York TimesPublished: November 4, 1971

Director Clint Eastwood's first movie is the story of a California disk jockey (Eastwood) who one night meets Evelyn (Jessica Walter), a good-looking devoted listener who has always called to ask that he play Erroll Garner's "Misty" for her, and begins what is to be a short-term casual affair without complications.

But Evelyn has a personality quirk, a little violent streak that shows as obstinate possessiveness when she is happy and as homicidal mania when she is not. The disk jockey has a real girl (Donna Mills), and Evelyn's response to her is a one-woman reign of terror that threatens most of the circumstance and provides all the suspense of Play Misty for Me, which opened yesterday at neighborhood theaters.

Both the circumstance—the handsome bachelor, the minor glamour and attractive loneliness of the media people, the relaxed nights and entrancing days, the scenery and life style of the Monterey Peninsula—and the suspense recall other, better movies. And it is sad that this film, with its locale and some of its moods out of Vertigo and its central obsessional action almost an inversion of Preminger's wonderful Laura should echo so briefly in the imagination.

It is not simply that the movie fails to make sense. A lot of good movies are weak on sense—though they don't often require a leading man to be quite so dense for quite so long in interpreting the behavior of a psychotic leading woman. But they must not be weak in sensibility, in that logic of emotional response that is the real motive power of the atmospheric thriller.

Play Misty for Me begins to fail with its opening title sequence, Eastwood's scenic drive from an isolated shore-side retreat to his radio station in Carmel—where each shot in the long, lyrical montage seems to count for less than the one that preceded it, until the car simply comes to a stop in a confusion of place and time that a broadcast voice on the soundtrack has to clear up.

The failure is never redeemed, and it extends even to the character of Evelyn, who begins as mystery and loses a bit with each appearance until she ends as mere knife-wielding mechanism for plot that happens to need a girlish monster.

The movie goes down with her, and I think the fault lies with Clint Eastwood the director, who has made too many easy decisions about events, about the management of atmosphere, about the treatment of performances—including the rather inexpressive one of Clint Eastwood the actor, who is asked to bear more witness to a quality of inwardness than his better directors have yet had the temerity to ask of him.

His best director, Don Siegel, makes his film acting debut here as a bartender named Murphy. Siegel is pretty good, but he's no Murphy. He looks decidedly Greek.

PLAY MISTY FOR ME Directed by Clint Eastwood; written by Jo Heims and Dean Riesner, based on a story by Mr. Heims; director of photography, Bruce Surtees; edited by Carl Pingitore; music by Dee Barton; art designer, Alexander Golitzen; produced by Robert Daley; released by Universal Pictures.

Running time: 102 minutes.

Below: Some more great shots from Play Misty For Me

New article on Play Misty for Me by David FurtadoBack in May I helped David out with an article he was writing on Play Misty for Me. It was tied in to celebrate Clint's Birthday. In the process David used some photos that were new to me and he kindly allowed me to use them here.

Hello Merwin,What a great story! I always welcome these sort of stories, as they can provide an original and unique insight. Merwin is it possible you can contact me through the email address provided in my profile, it would be great to talk more on this.I am not home until next week, but please do get in touch.The Clint Eastwood Archive